Body Wisdom & Uncompromising Portraits

by Lizbeth Dusseau

“You can model tomorrow?” he asked.

  “It’s Friday, isn’t it?” she considered. “I have wedding.”

  “So?”

  “I have to go,” Sydney answered flatly.

  “What’s that, an hour or two?” he said.

  “It’s all day. One of my best friends.”

  Malcolm was good at taking up her time, making assumptions and otherwise selfishly demanding her be available on his whim. It was annoying her, especially now.

  “I finally had Tomas scheduled.” He was peeved with her.

  “You should have told me. Of course it wouldn’t have mattered, because I couldn’t have come anyway.”

  “We’ve worked every other Friday, I thought you’d have assumed.”

  She smiled, trying to lighten the artist. He was piqued, with his lips pursed. He hardly gave her another glance until she was ready to leave.

  “Monday?” she asked him, on her way out.

  “We’ll try four o’clock. I’ll see if Tomas can make it then.” He was incredibly icy and preoccupied, and that was the best she’d get from him that afternoon.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a lovely wedding. Lots of sweet fragrant flowers, laughing guests, and reception “to die for”, so Miriam had promised, and true to her word, it was lavish.

  Sydney would have been happy just to appreciate the infinite work that had gone into the task of this wedding, remembering her own well.

  “So you’ve changed jobs, Sydney?” the little woman peered at her over the top of her glasses.”

  Sydney smiled, knowing this was going to be harder than she thought. She really had no business being at a wedding with her vast family of in-laws everywhere she turned. Being a best friend of the bride, however, kept her from declining.

  She tried keeping a low profile, dressing in a simple black suit with a white collar, forgoing the hat, settling for a lace mantilla for the church ceremony, and discarding it as soon as she left the wedding mass. She should have gone with Gabriel; that would have been the proper thing, both of their parents would have said. But if he was back from Aspen, she didn’t know because he hadn’t called her.

  “My painting is going very well,” Sydney replied to the curious woman, sure she wanted the dirt about she and Gabriel. It wouldn’t happen. But who knows what Gabriel’s family already knew about their separation. Giving the woman a saccharine grin, Sydney wandered off to find someone who wouldn’t care about her marital woes. Unfortunately, her best friend at the reception was the bride.

  Sydney gazed at Miriam’s mirth filled face, the long pure white of her wedding gown, the hope that filled her eyes. It was enough to put her in tears, but she planned being too tough for that. She hadn’t cried at the wedding, she wouldn’t cry now.

  “There was a lot of speculation about whether you’d show up.”

  Sydney turned and stared at Gabriel, obviously just returned from a skiing vacation. Well-tanned, he looked incredible. The curly dark locks of a new hair style was different than what she was used to, made Sydney look at her husband in a fresh light.

  “I’m the family gossip?” Syd asked.

  “I’ve tried to keep it from that,” Gabriel conceded.

  Sydney wasn’t sure why, but her heart was pounding a ruthless rhythm in her chest, like a school girl all aflutter.

  They turned and strolled together down the lawn to the dining gazebo.

  “Miriam sure took a chance having this outside, this early in the spring,” Sydney said, as the two gazed at the lovely grounds of Miriam’s parents’ home. It was a perfect place for a reception, plenty of well-manicured lawn to hold a glorious white tent, and for guests to mingle, and still have room enough for the band that was about to start playing.

  “Miriam’s always had a guardian angel in her back pocket,” Gabriel replied.

  He put his hand on Sydney’s back, guiding her along the stone path in a way he rarely did. He had his gentlemanly manner well-polished. But then, Sydney remembered, Gabriel always got a little stuffy at anything formal like a wedding, and anything where his family was around to watch.

  “So you’re upset I came?” Sydney asked him.

  “You could hardly not have come; Miriam would have been righteously pissed,” Gabriel admitted, though his cool detachment mimicked Malcolm’s. Feeling a deep freeze from the two men she cared about made her feel as lonely as she’d felt when Gabriel first left.

  Once they reached the buffet, Gabriel drifted off, and Sydney ate dinner with a few college friends, it was pleasant to laugh with for a while. She decided not to stay for the dancing that would likely go long into the night. She was not in the mood. Giving Miriam and her groom one last loving hug, she went upstairs to find her coat.

  The cool, dark upstairs of Miriam’s home was a welcome comfort. Sydney remembered the playful laughter when she spent the night in this house many times as Miriam’s giggling girlfriend. All before Gabriel. There was a fragrant scent in the air that would always remain in the house as something to soothe her.

  She was only aware that Gabriel had followed her upstairs, when she bent over to search the enormous stack of fur and cloth for her coat, and suddenly discovered her husband’s hands on her hips.

  “What are you doing?” She jerked around. He might have been a little drunk, or maybe he was just horny. The look in his flashing eyes was dripping with lecherous intent, even more provocative when he stared deliberately at her bosom. This was the last thing she expected.

  “You’re still my wife,” he said.

  “That’s true,” Sydney answered cautiously.

  He’d grabbed her so she couldn’t move, not that she wanted to; the capture was welcome, even if she wasn’t sure what he really wanted, or more importantly, what he was feeling about her. He’d been so noncommittal during their stilted conversation downstairs.

  “I’m missing you,” he said.

  “And I’m missing you.”

  He pulled her rapidly through the room, through the adjoining bathroom and into another bedroom where there were no coats covering the bed and locks on both doors.

  “This is Ginny’s room,” Sydney said.

  “Ginny’s drunk downstairs,” Gabe assured her.

  “You’re going to screw me here?” she asked.

  “Would that be so rough on you?” he asked.

  She jolted right in the pit of her stomach. The erotic charge from Gabe something that was so familiar to her, and yet not having experienced it in weeks, it swept through her with a memory like their first time together, and the second time and the third, and all the times when she looked at Gabe from a lover’s point of view, seeing the sheer beauty of his body, and the dark Italian features that pleased her on the most basic sexual level.

  He was more defiant than he usual, acting like he was pissed off, and that excited her too.

  Not up for conversation, he zeroed in on her breasts, unbuttoning the suit jacket to see nothing but white lace covering her chest.

  “Dressing for the occasion?” he observed sarcastically.

  “You always liked me in lace.”

  “I do. I like you out of it too,” he added, but he didn’t pull the fabric away. Instead, he turned her around, pushing her onto the bed and unzipping the short straight skirt, he pulled it off. Climbing in behind her, he pressed himself against her backside, taking a round ass cheek in each hand, and squeezing them hard enough for Sydney to whimper. “You want to deny me?” Gabriel asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s good, because I don’t feel like stopping.” Tugging down her underwear, he jerked them off, and played with her rear cleft, fingers going in both holes, toying with the erotic possibilities available.

  “Should I?” he asked, probing her anus more avidly.

  “If it’s what you want, Gabriel,” she answered.

  She’d never been this willing for anal sex before. He backed off for a moment, rummaged through the bathroom, and returned to splash somet
hing cold on her bottom, so his fingers slid easily in and out.

  It was easier than Sydney thought it would be, perhaps because she really wanted it now, when she’d never really consented before. Maybe she had Malcolm to thank for her change of desire, days before breaching her there with enough gentleness to make Gabriel taking her in the ass more acceptable.

  The first thrust of his cock created an explosion in her, and it took some minutes to get used to the odd penetration. Gabriel rocked in her gently at first, picking up speed the more she relaxed. Sydney wasn’t worried so much about the unusual screwing as she was keeping the ungodly sensations of the anal fuck from making her scream out loud.

  She was so happy he was quick; it made the act one stolen lusty moment of taboo pleasure. And it was really all she could take; the glorious sensations threatened at any instant to turn painful, though to the end they never did. Sydney was happier still when Gabriel consented to play with her so she’d climax once they fell down on Ginny’s bed together. He was the same attentive good man to her that she loved, even though she knew this screwing was an act of defiance, a power shot, a sure sign that he still wanted some control over her.

  “How much more of this exile do we have to take, Gabe?” Sydney asked, as she watched her husband rise from the bed. Gazing at his naked rear end was a treat, always one of her favorite turn-ons. She reached up and stroked it, and he turned around.

  How long are you going to be working with Malcolm Eisley?” Gabriel countered.

  “Working for Malcolm’s not the point.”

  “It is with me,” he insisted.

  “But you’re not being fair,” she said, realizing that they were headed into the same stupid argument, over the same impossible point that had made the last two weeks he’d lived in the apartment unbearable.

  “It’s all on your shoulders,” he said.

  “Couldn’t we just talk?” She took his hand in hers and looked up at his shadow covered face.

  He shook his head, “No, I’m still pissed at you. I mean you’ve taken the man as your lover. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “I implied that, yes,” she agreed.

  “I hate it, Syd, it only makes it worse. How can you be screwing him and still want to be with me? It makes no sense.”

  “I’m not sure, Gabe. I don’t love him, but I guess I can’t really expect you to believe that. Maybe I just need the comfort . . . and I’ll be honest, the work we’re doing together is not innocent.”

  He nodded, winning one small battle, though he was hardly happy about it.

  “I don’t know, maybe I do understand what you’re doing and why,” he said. He was so obtuse in his reply, she had no idea what he was thinking. “But right now, I’m better off leaving you be.”

  “Then why did you do this, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I still love you. And I love your body. Let’s just say I’m trying to figure it out. I hope you didn’t mind.”

  “No! I didn’t. I can assure you of that,” she answered eagerly.

  The half-smile on his tanned face was all she was going to get before he left.

  ***

  When Sydney arrived at Malcolm’s studio at four o’clock on Monday afternoon, she shivered the moment she opened the door and looked inside.

  Tomas was there.

  Naked.

  Tanned, muscled, lean and dark-haired, he could have exchanged his face with Gabriel’s, and the bodies would have been the same. So stunned by the sight Sydney was tempted to flee; but that was irrational, and not like her.

  She walked inside with a smile on her face, planning to take her clothes off and join her male counterpart for the next few hours.

  Chapter Nine

  In his arms, she was tucked into his chest. Submissive and yielding.

  That was the pose and the attitude, the only one she could assume under circumstances fraught with dozens of conflicting emotions. It was her job to relinquish, and maintain the posture Malcolm desired. Tomas’s arms were draped around her, hers around him, his muscled thigh pressed between her legs, against her pubis, his breath mingling with her breath, his hands caressing her so gently Malcolm wouldn’t notice, and Sydney hardly would have except that standing so stock still for so long, there was little else to do but pick up the tiny inflections. Were these little caresses unconscious, or deliberate? The question came to mind and retreated a half dozen times, while she and Tomas stood in their casual embrace.

  As she breathed in and out, her breasts—with sometimes hard, sometimes soft nipples—grazed against his chest. Could he feel them as she did with each breath? Did he wonder as she was wondering about the muted passion that moved between them? The longer joined, the more it seemed this pose produced something more than just two bodies, thrown together strangers.

  And as minutes turned into an hour, there was an ebb and flow of heat and cool, welcome arousal, and then moments of nothing when Sydney’s body, feeling uncomfortable being so close to his, closed up. It was then she felt his hand’s caress. Perhaps his intuition guided him to put her more at ease.

  “Take a break,” Malcolm said, just as she was feeling warm and almost nurtured by her fellow model.

  The two pulled away.

  Tomas smiled at her very sweetly, and moved off to the bathroom while Sydney watched his soft swaying genitals that had been pressed against her skin. Like her own sexual arousal, his had risen and fallen, his no mystery since his penis told the tale. But she marveled at his control. Seeing him move away from her, his penis was nearly flaccid now, diminishing back into its unaroused state.

  Malcolm was smiling when Sydney turned around to the artist.

  “You look pleased,” she said.

  “Oh, I am, you two are perfect, exactly as I planned.”

  “And we will we be posed like this again?” she asked.

  “I have lots of ideas for you two.”

  “I bet you do. Getting off on it too,” she jibed lightly.

  He looked at her oddly. “I find that a strange question.”

  “Why? Aren’t you really the consummate voyeur.”

  Tomas returned to the room, so that Malcolm didn’t feel the need to answer her question.

  “Let’s try one on the couch, reclining,” Malcolm said.

  Sydney stood waiting for further instructions, Tomas waited too. There was a prickly silence between them all, as if no one was willing to talk about what was happening, all the desire shuffled under the surface and Malcolm seeming to encourage the quiet.

  He would say, “it would add to the tension of the work,” Sydney thought to herself. She was beginning to know Malcolm well.

  “Face to face,” the artist instructed his models. “Staring into each other’s eyes.” Sydney and Tomas returned to the couch, following instructions, lying like lovers in naked repose, their eyes for the first time truly meeting, unspoken things going back and forth. Sydney wanted to smile to break the tension, but she didn’t dare.

  “Stroke each other for a moment,” Malcolm said. “Move your legs, as if you were just breaking apart from making love.”

  These were uneasy actions, tentatively rendered, though there was a willingness in both of them that began to appear, until Malcolm stopped them with their legs crossed and hands resting gently on hips, Sydney’s head reclining on her other outstretched arm, and Tomas, his head above hers looking down.

  “Perfect,” Malcolm said, just before he retreated to his spot behind his easel, where the sketch pens and charcoal flew with a furious abandon. He seemed to appreciate that such frozen postures could not be maintained for long.

  When the session was over, Sydney was raw with sexual heat. Though facing both men at the same time with her lust was more than she could bear. She was pulled toward Tomas, his body pursuing her all day, and to Malcolm, who had been manipulating that pursuit.

  “Would you like some wine, Syd?” Malcolm said, as he watched his model move to a corner to dress.

  �
��Not tonight, Malcolm.” She flashed him a nervous smile.

  “You did very well,” he added.

  “Thank you. How many more days are we going to be together like this?” she asked.

  “Several,” Malcolm said gently. He had started toward her, as if to drag her back into the lair with him and Tomas, who was happily reclining on the sofa.

  “Tomorrow then?” she said.

  “Tomorrow, four o’clock. I may need you until ten, don’t plan anything.”

  “Sure.” She tried not to bolt too quickly from the room, but her anxiety to leave was obvious.

  Three more sessions posing with Tomas, and none ended any more serene than the first. For nearly three hours each day in the shadows of a dying day, she was with the man, body against body, while Malcolm sketched them. She sat on Tomas’s lap while he cupped her breasts with his hands. She lay with him, her ass end pressed to his groin, his arms embracing her, a look of humble resignation on her face—not ordered by Malcolm, but seeming the right reflective attitude for the pose. She sat on his lap, facing him, her legs over his, their arms surrounding, looking into his dark, though often vacant eyes. Although, there were times when his eyes weren’t vacant at all, but reeked with an appetite as rampant as her own.

  All these varying poses made her think of a book on sexual positions, with lovers posed to illustrate sexual form. In that way, it almost seemed humorous, but they never poked fun at it. It was only laughable when Malcolm suggested a pose that was absurd and nearly impossible.

  Sydney thought she’d get used to the poses; that in time, day after day, it would become routine, their nakedness and familiarity so common that it would be nothing but work, nothing more.

  But this didn’t happen. Every time, she felt an inordinate heat well up in her, desire, longing, a passionate craving rising wildly, only to be squelched because she had no way to express her need. With Tomas’s penis often swelling, it was clear his arousal was not escaping him either. But he made no move to do anything more, at least in Malcolm’s presence.

  When the modeling was finished for the night, and Sydney’s got dressed, Tomas would remain in the studio, so Sydney was unable to have any private moments with Malcolm. Although after several days with the handsome model, it wasn’t Malcolm she wanted anyway. Her body ached for that final fusing of bodies with Tomas. It began and was frustrated by this passive love making that was not love making at all.